


Gristle

by Rotpeach



Series: Every Nuance of Misfortune [9]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novel)
Genre: Epilogue, Implied Necrophilia, Moral Bankruptcy, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: To the uninformed observer, everything is exactly the same as it's always been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> its  
> over

The home and garden store opens bright and early Monday morning, and Strade is one of the first people in the door.

He has a shopping list in his pocket and a smile on his face, taking a cart at the entrance and wheeling it past an irritated middle school shop teacher looking to replace a broken band saw and a group of over-caffeinated figurine enthusiasts deliberating over shades of paint. The manager waves at him from across the store and Strade gives a cheerful grin in response, but then he’s disappearing into the garden tool aisle, a man on a mission, friendly neighborhood crusader against broken fences and leaky roofs.

“That’s a good man right there,” the manager says, watching Strade’s cart reemerge a few aisles over with a couple bottles of lighter fluid.

(It’s just enough lighter fluid, too, larger than a habitual smoker’s tiny metal can but smaller than the half-gallon wannabe-arsonist jug, the perfect size for someone just looking to have a wholesome neighborhood barbecue.

Or the perfect size to douse a few people in accelerant so they burn hotter and quicker, but that couldn’t  _ possibly  _ be on the mind of someone so saintly.)

Strade chats up a man he finds comparing wrenches, gesturing emphatically, laughing heartily, putting a hand on his shoulder, and I don’t know how to read lips but I don’t have to; I know an invitation to the Braying Mule is given at some point. He’s tall and muscular with a bit of facial hair and endearingly crooked teeth, but he’ll probably be unrecognizable in a week or so.

(The basement might as well be a processing plant. Living things get thrown in, meat gets tossed out, dismembered, disemboweled, decapitated, packaged all pretty at room temperature. The wolf beckons with a charming smile and prey walks right in, and then he gorges himself on flesh and pain, he opens them up and forces his way inside, he lives under their skin and beneath their eyelids, in their every breath and heartbeat, and when they forget what they even were before he found them, the door opens and the vulture roosts at the top of the stairs, waiting—)

“Does it bother you?” Jane asks.

I glance over at her in the next checkout aisle. She glances pointedly at Strade and the stranger as if there’s something to be envious of over there. 

“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I’m sure you guys are fine, I just wondered—!”

“We broke up,” I tell her.

Her eyes widen and then narrow—she’s so sure she knew what was happening all along, that she’d seen through my every effort to conceal what was supposed to be a secret, and I let her believe it. “What happened?” she asks, tone sympathetic but gaze eager, fishing for gossip.

I drum my bandaged fingers on the register counter, smiling absently. “Oh, you know. We just had different ideas about where our relationship was headed.”

(Right into the fucking ground, according to both of us, with some fundamental differences regarding which one of us would actually end up there.)

“Oh,” Jane sighs, nodding sympathetically, “he’s more the 'settle down right away' type, huh?”

(Maybe I should be offended by the assumption, but I’m more amused than anything because she’s got it backwards. I’m the “always and forever” type, and he thinks I’m out of my mind.)

“You’re okay, right?” Her prodding tone is gone and replaced with something softer and more genuine. “If you wanna talk, I’m all ears.”

I smile. “You’re a good friend.” I’ve never said it before. I mean it. Jane’s face reddens and she stammers through a modest denial, not quite making it all the way before someone cuts in with,

“Hey, buddy.”

Strade’s resting his arms on the cart handle as he leans over it, his eyes flicking between the two of us. Jane’s mouth snaps shut and she pretends she has to put change in the register, removing herself from the conversation so she can eavesdrop in peace. 

“Are you really that torn up about it?” he asks teasingly. “I thought we broke it off on pretty good terms.” He smiles, setting a screwdriver on the counter. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” I say, holding up the price scanner. I smile back

(and I think about taking the screwdriver and jamming it in his fucking eye, see if he fucking smiles after that, just ram it in there in front of everyone and let them watch him writhe on the floor. Someone’d call the cops but he’d be a victim for once and it’d be beautiful).

I watch him take the lighter fluid and a charcoal respirator out of his cart. “Burning something?” I can’t help myself from asking.

He shrugs. “I’ve just needed a respirator for a while. I’ve been doing a lot more with chemicals lately. Spraying for bugs, that kind of thing.”

(He couldn’t even think of two examples. He’s probably trying to hold back laughter.)

A nail gun comes onto the counter next. I pretend I can’t find the barcode for a second and read the back of the box. “A contact trigger,” I say, pretending to be surprised. “You know these cause a lot of accidents, right? Try to be careful with it.”

“Aw, thanks, buddy,” he says, his eyes fixed on my hands as I put it into a plastic bag

(and he’s thinking about taking it out of the box right there, holding my hand down on the counter and having a few “accidents” all the way up my arm, riddling my flesh with holes as I scream. 

Would anyone even do anything? The shock might leave them all standing wide-eyed and slack-jawed, just watching him kill me and trying to pinch themselves awake from the nightmare.)

Just as I’m taking the last item off of the counter,

(a hot glue gun, which makes me frown because every outcome I can think of is disgusting)

he says, “I ordered a table the other night,” and I freeze.

“Yeah?” 

He smiles sickly. It makes me kind of nostalgic. “Yeah. But it’s, ah, it’s the kind you have to put together yourself, and I’m having a hard time understanding the manual.”

“ _ You’re _ having trouble with it?” I ask incredulously. “How am I supposed to figure it out, then?”

Strade’s fingertips graze the back of my hand in a mockery of a shy, intimate gesture. I shiver in revulsion and his smile widens. “You and I can do some pretty amazing things when we work together,” he says, his voice lower than before.

I hear a strangled squeak from Jane like she’s trying not to interject and pretend I don’t notice.

“So, tonight,” he says, and I nod.

“Yeah, I’ll swing by after work. See what I can do.”

(See what he’s got hidden down there, really, because almost every time is a surprise now. We don’t go to the Braying Mule together because it’s tense and unpleasant and we both need our space. 

Still, I trust his judgment. Turns out we have the same type, give or take an hour for all bodily functions to cease.)

Only after he’s out the door does Jane nearly leap into my lane, exclaiming, “I thought you broke up!”

“We did,” I insist smoothly. “Our relationship is strictly professional now.”

“But he...he touched you, and it looked….” She frowns. “Whatever. As long as you’re happy.”

(The wolf slinks back into its den with an empty belly and sharpened claws. The prey doesn’t stand a chance.

The vulture waits and waits and waits, because it knows if it’s too quick the wolf might still be hungry and it might not be able to fly away. 

But it will go eventually because the reward outweighs the risk—a fresh carcass stripped of pride and fear and resistance, the blemishes of life—and no matter how many times it’s bitten, it knows where to find an easy meal again.)

I rest my elbows on the register counter, my sore, bandage-wrapped fingers below my chin, and I start to daydream. “You know what?” I say with a smile, “I think I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> so ends the misadventures of sweaty snuff man and his sidekick corpse-lover kid  
> im gonna miss having a series to work on. its a nice change of pace from the usual one-shots  
> im not completely sure whats next but ill think of something  
> if youve come all this way from glass houses, thank you! i hope you got something out of it


End file.
